as a March wind,
and her laugh filled every nook and corner of the capacious mansion. How
could I unseal the sacred history of my mother's sorrows within the
sound of that loud, echoing ha, ha?

I could not; so I stole away to a spot, where sacred silence has set up
its everlasting throne. The sun had not yet gone down, but the shadows
of the willows lengthened on the grass. I sat at the foot of the grave
leaning against a marble slab, and unsealed, with cold and trembling
hands, my mother's _heart_, for so that manuscript seemed to me.

At first I could not see the lines, for my tears rained down so fast
they threatened to obliterate the delicate characters; but after
repeated efforts I acquired composure enough to read the following brief
and thrilling history. It was the opening of the sixth seal of my life.
The stars of hope fell, as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she
is shaken by a mighty wind, and the heaven of my happiness departed as a
scroll when it is rolled together, and the mountains and islands of
human trust were moved out of their places.

MY MOTHER'S HISTORY.

"Gabriella, before your eyes shall rest on these pages, mine will be
closed in the slumbers of death. Let not your heart be troubled, my only
beloved, at the record of wrongs which no longer corrode; of sorrows
which are all past away. 'In my Father's house are many mansions,' and
one of them is prepared for me. It is my Saviour's promise, and I
believe it as firmly as if I saw the golden streets of the New
Jerusalem, where that heavenly mansion is built.

"Weep not, then, my child, my orphan darling, over a past which cannot
be recalled; let not its shadow rest too darkly upon you,--if there is
joy in the present, be grateful; if there is hope in the future,
rejoice.

"You have often asked me to tell you where I lived when I was a little
child; whether my home was a gray cottage like ours, in the woods; and
whether I had a mother whom I loved as dearly as you loved me. I have
told you that my first feeble life-wail mingled with her dying groan,
and you wondered how one could live without a mother's love.

"I was born in that rugged fortress, whose embattled walls are washed by
the majestic Bay of Chesapeake. My father held a captain's commission in
the army, and was stationed for many years at this magnificent,
insulated bulwark. My father, at the time of my mother's death, was a
young and gallant officer, and I was his only c